Today’s guest post is by Sabrina.
Sabrina is a stay at-home mom with a wonderful husband, two children under 11 and a 2-year-old Havanese. Her interests include cooking, baking, creative activities with kids, coffee with friends, reading and of course, family. When she’s not trying out new recipes that she’s found on Pinterest, she’s sweating it out at Zumba or daydreaming about her next family vacation. She loves to organize and simplify, and will be the first to tell you she’s a clean freak!
It’s hard to believe that the holidays are almost here! I just hosted my family for Thanksgiving (up to 32 adults and children!), so I am always looking for new recipes to serve my guests, and to save time.
Well, this year, I have a new one… a roasted Turducken. Have you ever heard of it?
As the name implies, Turducken is a combination of turkey, duck, and chicken breast meat. Echelon Foods offers it as a breast roast or de-boned, except for the wings and drumsticks, and pre-stuffed with two choices of stuffing (Apple Chicken or Italian Sausage).
The weekend before Turkey Day, I planned to have a “mini” pre-Thanksgiving dinner with some of the usual fixings, to try out this new kind of bird – and I invited a few guests over to experience this new culinary adventure.
I purchased the Echelon brand Turducken at my local large chain supermarket in the freezer case and chose the Turducken Premium Roast.
It was frozen, weighed about 6.5 lbs and took about three days to defrost. Keep that in mind if you plan to prepare this for Christmas!
Game Day
I prepared the turducken roast (which was pre-stuffed with an apple chicken stuffing) as I normally prepare a turkey or chicken (whole or breast).
I added slices of lemons on the bottom of the roasting pan and placed the roast over the lemons.
Then, I poured olive oil all of over the roast, sprinkled it with salt, pepper, garlic powder and Italian seasonings.
I chopped carrots, celery and onions, and, added them to the bottom of the roasting pan, along with organic chicken stock and white cooking wine.
The oven was set to 350 degrees. I basted the Turducken every 30 minutes for approximately four hours, until it reached an internal temperature of 165 degrees.
I served the turducken with mashed potatoes, stuffing, rice and tossed salad.
Thoughts on the Turducken
My guests were hungry and it was time for the BIG reveal!
Right away, my guests and my husband complimented the presentation of the roast. Once it was carved, you could actually see the three layers of meat and stuffing.
The meat was very tender, flavorful, and moist. No one had tried duck before, so there was some hesitation, but we all sampled it and it was excellent!
The only way you could tell which meat was the duck, was it was a darker meat.
The duck was just as tender, flavorful and moist as the turkey meat. It could be compared to the darker meat you often find in the turkey legs, but de-boned and much easier to eat.
My family is an Italian family, very traditional (we serve antipasto and lasagna before soup on Thanksgiving!), so I assumed that adding a unique bird may not have been approved. I think if I did decide to serve it for Thanksgiving next year, I would roast it with my other turkeys and serve it on the same platter.
This Echelon Turducken Premium Roast would be a great addition to any family’s holiday menu or other family gatherings. There’s one thing I know for sure, it will be the talk of the meal!
Overall, it was easy to prepare, it presented beautifully once carved, and the unique flavor gave our taste buds something to talk about!
Disclosure: For the purpose of this recipe, Echelon Foods provided The Mod Mommy with a Turducken to sample. All opinions are ours and we were not told what to say.
Have you ever tried Turducken? If so, what do you think?
Think looks so delicious! I have to try it!
Thanks for letting me be your guest 🙂